Another Senior Exec Leaves Google, Joins EMI

Google on Wednesday bid farewell to its CIO, loosing its second senior executive in two months. Douglas Merrill, a chief information officer and vice president of engineering at Google, is leaving the Internet search giant to become president of digital music for EMI, the recorded music division of EMI Group.

Merrill will join the London-based music label on April 28, and will work from EMI Music's Los Angeles office. At EMI, he will assume a newly created role, and will be charged with the challenging task of boosting digital music sales for the company.

As president of EMI Music's digital business, Merrill will help record label determine how to turn around its struggling business. He will be responsible for all of the company's digital strategy, innovation, business development, supply chain and global technology activities.

He will report directly to Guy Hands, the chairman of EMI and the chief executive of the London-based private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners that bought EMI in September or $4 billion, excluding debt.

"He has been a key member of the management team at Google which has created more value than any other consumer internet company by focusing relentlessly on tools that enable consumers to do things more effectively," Guy Hands said. "His experience, talents, and his ability to drive innovation will be enormously valuable to EMI and to its artists," he added.

Overwhelmed with his post as music head at EMI, Merrill in a statement said, "I have two passions. One is creating platforms and tools that make it easier for consumers to achieve their goals. The other is music. This exciting new role at EMI is a unique opportunity for me to be able to put those two passions to work together and help deliver EMI's objective of providing the best services in the world to consumers and musicians."

Merrill’s recruit at EMI comes at a time when the company is going through the middle of a restructuring plan. The label cut a quarter of its workforce in January. The cuts are expected to leave EMI with about 4,500 employees, down from more than 15,000 in the early 1990s. Under the restructuring plan, the company will mainly focus on digital distribution, among other things.

Merrill’s exit is the third big loss for Google in just two months. Before Merrill, two senior executives, Sheryl Sandberg and Ethan Beard, fled to the Palo Alto-based Facebook.

Merrill joined Google, the hulk of internet search, in 2003 and served as senior director of information systems. He was responsible for all billing and revenue technology as well as internal engineering efforts and support worldwide. He also was involved with several other technology projects like executing Google's IPO in 2004 and managing the launch of Google Checkout, an online payment system, in 2006.

Before joining Google, he was senior vice president at investment firm Charles Schwab & Co.